A sprawling review of the Justice Department’s handling of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot — and the Trump administration’s actions that preceded it — is unlikely to be released until after the next election takes place in November, the agency’s top internal watchdog said Wednesday.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said he recently received a draft of the long-anticipated report, but the process of completing it and preparing it for release is expected to extend beyond Election Day.
“I doubt it would be done in time for the election,” Horowitz said during a hearing of the House subcommittee probing “weaponization” of the federal government.
“Is it going to be done before the inauguration?” an incredulous Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) asked.
“That is certainly my hope,” Horowitz replied.
The report was ordered about a week after the Jan. 6 riot and is expected to cover an extensive range of topics, from former President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign against top Justice Department officials to intervene in the election to the department’s preparation for and response to the violence at the Capitol.
Horowitz, who has been inspector general since 2012, said some of the delay has been caused by a decision to “pause” the report amid criminal investigations the Justice Department led into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. It didn’t resume until last year, he said, adding that before the report can be released it will have to be sent to top DOJ officials for their response and for a classification review.
The Justice Department has charged more than 1,500 people in connection with the Capitol riot, and more cases are brought almost every day. However, jury trials in the highest-profile conspiracy cases involving groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were completed last year.
Massie is seeking information on the presence and role of FBI informants in the Jan. 6 events — a topic Horowitz said will be addressed in the report.
Some of the thousands of people who surged toward the Capitol that day had prior dealings with federal law enforcement. A few have even testified at trials for Jan. 6 defendants. Allies of Trump have suggested FBI informants helped instigate the riot and then went uncharged, but FBI Director Christopher Wray has roundly rejected that claim.
“If you are asking whether the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and/or agents, the answer is emphatically not — no,” Wray said at a House hearing last November.
But Massie complained Thursday that the years of delay in getting answers to such questions undercut the value of watchdog reports like the one Horowitz is preparing.
“The reason to do these reports, I think, is … not to make the same mistakes again. But we are just weeks away from an inauguration, and we're four years, almost four years into this report,” the frustrated House member declared.
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